MONTGOMERY, Alabama -- The man who was
driving legendary performer Hank Williams the night he passed died Monday after
a brief illness, according to a spokeswoman for the Hank Williams Museum and an
Associated Press (AP) report.

Retired investor and cab company owner Charles Carr – who was only
18 when he was driving Williams' 1952 blue Cadillac near Bluefield, W.Va.,
heading for Canton, Ohio – was 79, according to Beth Petty, director of the Hank
Williams Museum, at 111 Commerce St. in downtown Montgomery.

Charles Carr is shown at the graves of Hank and Audrey Williams in Oakwood Cemetery in Montgomery, Ala. in this Monday, January 1, 2007 photo. Carr died on Monday July 1, 2013, after a brief illness. He was 77. Carr was driving Hank Williams through Oak Hill, W. Va., when Williams died on New Year's Day in 1953. (AP Photo/Julie Bennett)

Carr's son, Charles Lands Carr, said his
father rarely talked about being Williams' driver on Jan. 1, 1953, the day he
the music legend died, until late in his life. Carr began to speak more about
Williams' last ride after he became involved with the museum, according to the
AP story.

"When he was younger he didn't have an
interest in being defined by that moment in his life," Lands Carr said. In
later years, Lands Carr said the museum "embraced" his father who
became more comfortable talking about that trip with Williams.

"If they invited him, he made a point of
being there," Lands Carr said of the museum.

Petty
described Carr as a friend of the Hank Williams museum and as a man who
"was always kind to fans of Hank." Petty said Carr never tried to
profit from the fact that he was driving the country music singer on that last
trip.